Changing the words with the attitude.
I had an entire blog written. It was long and full of emotion. For some reason (oh yeah, a reason of which I am fully aware), I hesitated posting. Over the weekend I was taught as I listened at the feet of inspired men. I learned that the attitude in the words to the post needed to be changed. I post this not because I think that I am something spectacular, but because I am truly amazed at was once a frustration and deep pain is now becoming a stepping stone and good soil in which to grow....a change in attitude.
I woke up the other morning at 2:30 and despite every effort, failed to slide back into my normal nightly coma. I stared at the ceiling until 5:00 am, my mind cranking a hundred miles a minute. I am amazed at the power of thought. In those two and a half hours, I cried, prayed, got angry, laughed right out loud and felt concerned, love lonely, bitter, happy, frustrated (um, yeah to put it nicely), overwhelmed, confused, resolved, sad, desperate and balanced my checkbook. Okay I really didn’t balance my checkbook.
Honestly I believe that the problem began in high school. I wasn’t the girl that got asked to the prom. I wasn’t even the girl over doing the other girls’ hair for the prom. I was the girl that was helping the guys ask all of my girl friends to the prom. I was the girl that always had a group of guys around that adored me and hugged me and would kill anyone that even thought of looking at me cross eyed. They came to me for advice concerning other girls. They came to me when their hearts were broken. They came to me when they had good, bad, sad, happy news or just because they wanted to be near me or they needed to know someone cared and would care no matter what they had done. Despite my datelessness throughout high school, sincerely everyone was just positive that I would be the first married because who didn’t love me?!
I was probably the only one shocked when only a few weeks after high school graduation my first boyfriend….a guy that actually was interested in being more than my friend....came along. This is where I began to mentally compile the unnumbered statements about me. I have never looked at them as being positive because they always came with a broken heart or lack of understanding. However as I look at them now, I am determined to see them as they are regardless of the outcome of those relationships.
I have a tendency to date my friends. I am not one of those women that run around and take an interest in every guy that happens to walk by during the day. Somewhere my mind made a requirement for my heart that I had to see the goodness in a guy’s heart before I could even begin to have the slightest interest. Once that happens, I fall fast and hard. The major problem being, I am always the best friend and guys don’t date their best friends.
Being the bold, blunt person that I am, I have asked all kinds of different men in my life either why they never asked me out or why it never worked between us. Here is a very small sampling of the answers that I have received over the years:
“I never realized that I had right in front of me and even if I had I would have never thought that it was attainable.”
“You already had everything. I had nothing to offer you.”
“I was doing stupid things while we were dating. You were just too good for me. Had we dated six months later, I would have married you.”
“I knew you would be the last girl that I ever dated, so I kept putting it off in order to date one more girl before I asked you out.”
“Imagining waking up in the morning, rolling over in bed and looking at beautiful you asleep next to me and knowing that I would never be deserving was too intimidating.”
“I could never be all that you already are and you are still continuing to be even better.”
“You are everything that I ever wanted, I just didn’t know how or thought that I could attain it.”
Now were they just being nice? I will never know but they were some of my dearest friends and I have seen the majority of them get married and start families. Actually some of them have shared with me after they were married and so there was really no reason for them to lie.
I have also had many individuals, concerned for my singleness offer their two cents on what I am doing wrong and what they think that I should do. Let’s see, I have heard:
Lower your standard, nobody can compete.
Act dumb.
Be a jerk, for some reason guys like to be treated like dirt. They don’t know what to do when someone is nice to them and so they go in search of the other.
Be more mysterious.
Be more needy.
Be more fun.
Don’t let them know how into the church you are.
Well none of this will work for me because I believe in being honest and none of that would be honest. I am who I am. What you see is what you get. I would rather be happy being myself and be single than trick someone into marrying me and then on the morning after the honeymoon roll over and be someone completely different. That is just not fair and I have seen too many of my guy friends find themselves in that situation and it doesn’t make for a blissful start. They feel a little bit manipulated.
I find that in my life everything goes well until the kiss. I don’t know if it is revolting, if I am a horrible kisser or what, but all the trauma seems to happen after the kiss. I know tenderly call it the kiss of death. So I have made a decision. I am just going to take all the nice things that everyone has said to me, keep them in a bottle to make me smile when things are tough, but I am just not going to kiss anymore. Sad, because I love to kiss, but it seems to be what makes me become what nobody wants because it is always the cause of the putting on of the running shoes from what I can deduct.
I am truly blessed to have as many great friends as I do and so I think that I just need to teach myself to be happy with it there in that safe realm. I would never want anyone to settle for me and so I am not going to ask that they do. I am happy. I am successful. I am loved by my family. I am loved from on high. I have compliments to get me through. It is true that we never are asked to go through what we can’t handle.
I am going to live by this quote that hangs on my wall:
“People can be illogical, unreasonable and self-centered, love them anyway.
If you are kind – people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives, be kind anyway.
If you are successful you win false friends and true enemies, succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow, but do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness always makes you vulnerable, be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest person with big ideas is always shot down by the smallest person with small ideas, think big anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight, build it anyway.
People really need help, but if you help them, they may attack you, help them anyway.
If you give the world the best you have you may be taken advantage of, but give the world your best anyway.
If you think differently, you may get criticized by the masses, dare to be different anyway.
You cannot help other people without helping yourself more,
You cannot destroy other people without destroying yourself first,
Life is real simple, Live fully and let others live.
I had an entire blog written. It was long and full of emotion. For some reason (oh yeah, a reason of which I am fully aware), I hesitated posting. Over the weekend I was taught as I listened at the feet of inspired men. I learned that the attitude in the words to the post needed to be changed. I post this not because I think that I am something spectacular, but because I am truly amazed at was once a frustration and deep pain is now becoming a stepping stone and good soil in which to grow....a change in attitude.
I woke up the other morning at 2:30 and despite every effort, failed to slide back into my normal nightly coma. I stared at the ceiling until 5:00 am, my mind cranking a hundred miles a minute. I am amazed at the power of thought. In those two and a half hours, I cried, prayed, got angry, laughed right out loud and felt concerned, love lonely, bitter, happy, frustrated (um, yeah to put it nicely), overwhelmed, confused, resolved, sad, desperate and balanced my checkbook. Okay I really didn’t balance my checkbook.
Honestly I believe that the problem began in high school. I wasn’t the girl that got asked to the prom. I wasn’t even the girl over doing the other girls’ hair for the prom. I was the girl that was helping the guys ask all of my girl friends to the prom. I was the girl that always had a group of guys around that adored me and hugged me and would kill anyone that even thought of looking at me cross eyed. They came to me for advice concerning other girls. They came to me when their hearts were broken. They came to me when they had good, bad, sad, happy news or just because they wanted to be near me or they needed to know someone cared and would care no matter what they had done. Despite my datelessness throughout high school, sincerely everyone was just positive that I would be the first married because who didn’t love me?!
I was probably the only one shocked when only a few weeks after high school graduation my first boyfriend….a guy that actually was interested in being more than my friend....came along. This is where I began to mentally compile the unnumbered statements about me. I have never looked at them as being positive because they always came with a broken heart or lack of understanding. However as I look at them now, I am determined to see them as they are regardless of the outcome of those relationships.
I have a tendency to date my friends. I am not one of those women that run around and take an interest in every guy that happens to walk by during the day. Somewhere my mind made a requirement for my heart that I had to see the goodness in a guy’s heart before I could even begin to have the slightest interest. Once that happens, I fall fast and hard. The major problem being, I am always the best friend and guys don’t date their best friends.
Being the bold, blunt person that I am, I have asked all kinds of different men in my life either why they never asked me out or why it never worked between us. Here is a very small sampling of the answers that I have received over the years:
“I never realized that I had right in front of me and even if I had I would have never thought that it was attainable.”
“You already had everything. I had nothing to offer you.”
“I was doing stupid things while we were dating. You were just too good for me. Had we dated six months later, I would have married you.”
“I knew you would be the last girl that I ever dated, so I kept putting it off in order to date one more girl before I asked you out.”
“Imagining waking up in the morning, rolling over in bed and looking at beautiful you asleep next to me and knowing that I would never be deserving was too intimidating.”
“I could never be all that you already are and you are still continuing to be even better.”
“You are everything that I ever wanted, I just didn’t know how or thought that I could attain it.”
Now were they just being nice? I will never know but they were some of my dearest friends and I have seen the majority of them get married and start families. Actually some of them have shared with me after they were married and so there was really no reason for them to lie.
I have also had many individuals, concerned for my singleness offer their two cents on what I am doing wrong and what they think that I should do. Let’s see, I have heard:
Lower your standard, nobody can compete.
Act dumb.
Be a jerk, for some reason guys like to be treated like dirt. They don’t know what to do when someone is nice to them and so they go in search of the other.
Be more mysterious.
Be more needy.
Be more fun.
Don’t let them know how into the church you are.
Well none of this will work for me because I believe in being honest and none of that would be honest. I am who I am. What you see is what you get. I would rather be happy being myself and be single than trick someone into marrying me and then on the morning after the honeymoon roll over and be someone completely different. That is just not fair and I have seen too many of my guy friends find themselves in that situation and it doesn’t make for a blissful start. They feel a little bit manipulated.
I find that in my life everything goes well until the kiss. I don’t know if it is revolting, if I am a horrible kisser or what, but all the trauma seems to happen after the kiss. I know tenderly call it the kiss of death. So I have made a decision. I am just going to take all the nice things that everyone has said to me, keep them in a bottle to make me smile when things are tough, but I am just not going to kiss anymore. Sad, because I love to kiss, but it seems to be what makes me become what nobody wants because it is always the cause of the putting on of the running shoes from what I can deduct.
I am truly blessed to have as many great friends as I do and so I think that I just need to teach myself to be happy with it there in that safe realm. I would never want anyone to settle for me and so I am not going to ask that they do. I am happy. I am successful. I am loved by my family. I am loved from on high. I have compliments to get me through. It is true that we never are asked to go through what we can’t handle.
I am going to live by this quote that hangs on my wall:
“People can be illogical, unreasonable and self-centered, love them anyway.
If you are kind – people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives, be kind anyway.
If you are successful you win false friends and true enemies, succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow, but do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness always makes you vulnerable, be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest person with big ideas is always shot down by the smallest person with small ideas, think big anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight, build it anyway.
People really need help, but if you help them, they may attack you, help them anyway.
If you give the world the best you have you may be taken advantage of, but give the world your best anyway.
If you think differently, you may get criticized by the masses, dare to be different anyway.
You cannot help other people without helping yourself more,
You cannot destroy other people without destroying yourself first,
Life is real simple, Live fully and let others live.
posted by B at
9:31 PM
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